we are supposed to be just like this
by lowi
Summary: Remus and Sirius. Three moments, one that shouldn't go away, one that shouldn't exist, and one that is perfect. Slash. Written for mew!


_A/N: This is written for the __Marauders Era Prompts! __thread at the __P,P,__P forum. I used the 13__th__ October set, which included the pairing and these prompts: spindle, stripes, bright eyes, empty laugh_.

_Dedicated to mew (__mew-tsubaki__), for being an awesome friend who helps me with everything. I hope you'll like this, hon!_

_Thanks to Jo_ (_jojor99__), for betareading.  
_

**we are supposed to be just like this**

In moments like these, Sirius just wanted to stop time. It felt as though the two of them were caught in a spindle; a spindle which spun faster and faster and faster. And that was all good, because that meant happiness and a stomach that jolted as though it had lifted him up through the ceiling, above the clouds, around the moon, and back. It meant that he didn't know where to go because everything just felt so perfect. But a spindle will run out of speed sometime, and begin wobbling until it falls down to the floor with a thud. And it doesn't move again.

So, he wanted to stop time. He just wanted to lie there, as close as he could to him, and feel how Remus' breath warmed his neck. He still couldn't truly believe it. But that didn't matter, because he _knew_ it was true. This was real, Remus was real, and they were real. Of course it felt Unbelievably Unreal, but in a good way. Like if a Pegasus suddenly had appeared in front of him and asked him to go with him to Atlantis—that would have felt as Unbelievably Unreal_, _but equally good.

Remus suddenly sniffed, and tightly gripped Sirius' wrist. He twisted in the sheets, making their tangled legs tangle even more, so much so that Sirius feared they would never be able to untangle themselves again. Not that that was a bad thing, he rather liked being tangled with Remus, so he decided to grab Remus' hand and tangle his fingers with his own, as well.

Underneath his eyelids, Remus' eyes darted quickly, like a school of fish unable to decide where to go. Sirius concluded he must be dreaming, the only question was if it was a nightmare or not. If he woke him to ask and it was not a nightmare, then he would feel bad for disrupting Remus' dreams. (He wondered absentmindedly what they were about.) If he, on the other hand, didn't, and it turned out it indeed was a nightmare, he would feel bad for not helping Remus through it. _What to do, what to do?__  
_  
But someone was on Sirius' side this night; someone with a lot of power and an urge to do Sirius a favour, and pull him out of his unanswerable questions, as Remus opened his eyes slowly, looking straight at Sirius.

"What were you dreaming about?" Sirius asked, his voice a bit strained as Remus had his head heavily resting on his chest.

"Er…I don't quite remember," Remus answered, his voice muffled and his lips soothing on Sirius' skin. "There was a cat and a pair of shoes involved."

Sirius nodded. For some inexplicable reason, it felt good that they both took this so seriously. It was like knowing that the other knew you cared, and also like when you crawled underneath a blanket and it was warm, fuzzy, and dark in a good way. "Was I there?" he asked after a moment of contemplation.

"No, I'm afraid not," Remus answered, blinking and causing his eyelashes to sweep across Sirius skin, making him shiver happily—if there was such a thing. Even if there wasn't, he did.

"Oh," was his answer when he realized what Remus had said. He wanted Remus to _always _dream of him, so he was a tiny bit disappointed. But not much, he couldn't be as they had the dormitory to themselves and they had to make the most of their time alone together. And, not to mention, the fact that Remus was lying on Sirius' stomach.

"But I think that was good, actually. I mean, you don't like cats, and there were a lot of them in this dream. Almost everywhere," Remus said and both of them shuddered at the same time. Whenever this happened, when they laughed at the exact same moment, when they began answering a question with the exact same words, Sirius always felt something in his gut. A content little rumble, like the one after eating a delicious meal, telling him how perfect everything was, how they were so synchronized with each other that they almost knew what was going on in the other's head.

Or maybe not always. Because Sirius surely hadn't counted on Remus lifting his head, grinning lazily with eyes that burned into him, and then crashing his lips onto his. Sirius thought he was dying. There were just too many feelings at once and he absolutely didn't know what to do. This was just too unexpected and too unRemusy and too Unbelievably Unreal, again.

But he liked it. So that was why he really wanted to stop time right now—no, not _stop _it, but kill it. He wanted to stay there forever, and keep that feeling that he had a too small body and that he was bursting and dying all in one.

The time that ticked on so stubbornly to reach its goal of throwing the two of them out into reality could just go chuck itself somewhere. Or Sirius would make it.

* * *

It was times like these that Remus wanted to get rid of his brain. He couldn't fall asleep because his brain was filled of unforgettable pictures and nagging thoughts, like fluttering butterflies that had forgotten all about their shyness and instead were nothing but noisy, awful insects you wanted to kill and erase from the Earth and never, ever see again.

Remus' hands were clenched into fists and he had no idea of how to release them. All he knew was that he was thinking of Things You Shouldn't Think Of, because the object of those thoughts was a traitor, and you shouldn't think of such things (once only inappropriate, but now also disgusting) when it was about a traitor.

He put his pillow over his head as his brain apparently hadn't understood this. But how was it even possible for his mind to include a _murderer _(especially a murderer of his friends!) in so bright and happy images?

A murderer should be connected to empty laughs, hollow voices, cruel fingers and ice cold words. Not bubbling, giggling laughter, warm, emotion-filled voices, caring, touching fingers and words that made your heart swell and swell and swell until it floated around.

There really had to be something wrong with him, Remus concluded and let out a sighing groan, even though you can't do that. But you can't sigh groaningly either, so Remus didn't really know how else to describe it.

Anyway, the sheets and pillows around him were suffocating him sufficiently, along with pictures of dark hair spread on that pillow, fingers clutching the rim of that sheet. Remus was certain someone would kill him any moment now. This was so wrong and there had to be a punishment waiting for him. But he still couldn't get Sirius out of his mind, and it felt so right when the syllables that formed "Sirius" rolled in his mind like a bunch of beads dropped on the floor, filling the hole in his heart with _SiriusSiriusSirius_. It was all hopeless.

And, yet, he was so egoistical. Because if he was going to think of Sirius now, why was he only thinking of and remembering times when the two of them were together? Why wasn't he worrying his feet off, wringing his hands like there was no tomorrow, biting his nails all the way down to the wrist and then further down to the elbow? Why wasn't he doing all that you were supposed to do when your Sirius was thrown into Azkaban?

Probably because if he did, it would all be too real and he wouldn't be able to pretend he didn't feel all This about Sirius. All This about a murderer.

Remus sat himself up and told himself in a stern voice, making up pictures of waggling fingers and crossed arms, shaking heads to accompany the voice: _Enough. No more of this emotionally, mentally, and physically exhausting pondering! I will now count the stripes on this blanket until I fall asleep, instead of counting sheep. This will work much better, since they aren't fluffy and reminding me of Sirius' sheepish looks._

And he began a lot happier than before. One, two, three, oh nice purple this one, four, five, six, seven, eight, I rather like this blue, nine, ten, hey, this is the same shade as two, eleven, oh, they are repeating themselves, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, this brown looks like...stop that!, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, Sirius once had a shirt with this colour, NO, eighteen, nineteen, twenty, twenty-one, Sirius' eyes again...

Yes, times like these, Remus wanted nothing but getting rid of his brain. If he had the chance to rip it out…he would have done it without a second thought. It would have been so nice not having to think, ever again.

* * *

At this very moment, Sirius actually thought he had died back in Azkaban, and gone to heaven. That his memories of his journey back to England were merely hallucinations, or not! He had to have finished traveling and died unknowingly outside Remus' door— that made much more sense. Someone must have hit him with a spell and he died completely ignorant, just before Remus opened the door.

Because it was after the door had opened and Remus' face had appeared, that Sirius' heart had stopped beating. It was then that everything had stopped; life, the sun, the stars, everyone, had stopped in their movements to join in on Sirius' dying.

But in another way, everything had begun moving, as well. It was a bit odd, this, but it was how it was. When he had seen Remus' eyes going from deep and grief-stricken to bright and surprised, his life had got its meaning back. It had made his heart pound so fast he was sure it would jump out of his chest, so in a way he had begun to live again.

Of course, he had seen Remus some weeks before; that night in the grounds of Hogwarts, but then it had only been hatred, darkness, and those sorts of things you now just want to forget. Those sorts of things that made it possible to remove your focus from the face you had imagined in your head all those years in Azkaban, and instead pay attention to your godson and that rat traitor thingy you never wanted to think of again. But still, he had never really remembered the face in its whole and in the Shrieking Shack he had never really been able to look at it, because of those things, again.

So in a way, this was the first time he had really seen his Moony again. They just stood there, both of them, looking at each other. Sirius had no idea if Remus was also dying and beginning to live, but it didn't really matter, because, suddenly he couldn't stand still any longer, so he dropped the bag he was holding, took a step, and ran forward.

And Remus opened his eyes, and they were still so synchronized, as if they hadn't been apart at all, and they held onto each other so hard, and yet Sirius wanted to be closer. There was Sirius' legs that wrapped around Remus' waist, there was the realization that Remus didn't even wobble as he got Sirius' full weight thrown at him, there were noses that bumped into each other, there was colliding, bending, and pushing and not awkwardness even once.

It was just like their first kiss. In a way it _was _their first kiss replayed exactly like that day by the Black Lake, because they were on Remus' porch and it began to rain. They were soaking and they couldn't find each other's lips fast enough, and there was desperation and a feeling in the chest that told you finally. It was so much that a little bit more of Sirius died every second that he didn't taste Remus.

Every moment his hands slipped from Remus' back, he became afraid, but every time he put them back he was safe. Every moment their lips parted for the briefest of moments he thought he'd explode, but every time they met again he thought he was whole, like the Most-Whole-Man-In-The-World, so whole nothing could ever break him.

And it was like their first kiss, because they landed on the grass after a few seconds, just like they had slipped in the sand, and it was like their first kiss because their hands were as inexperienced, as surprised, and shivering when they touched each other's skin. Because then Sirius had never really felt the prominent scars on Remus' back ,and Remus had never really felt the small hairs on Sirius', and, now, now they hadn't felt these for so long, it was like new. Even though they recognized it all like their own hands.

"Rem," he said when they lay next to each other, raindrops hitting them like tiny little bombs and not a single star visible in the sky, which didn't matter, because it was already perfect. "I'm back."

"I know, Pad. Welcome home," Remus whispered as he rolled over to his side so he faced Sirius. And it was like there were two Remuses next to Sirius; one that was today's Remus and he was all wise and unfamiliar, and, at the same time more familiar than ever. And the other was the reflection of fifteen year old Remus, giggling like mad and bursting into fits of laughter as soon as Sirius said something. It was rather nice having these two Remuses next to him, because they reminded him of yesterday and told him of tomorrow.

"Thanks," Sirius whispered back, equally low. He grabbed Remus' hand and squeezed it so hard that he could tell Remus all of this through that one touch. That he didn't know what it was, but he wanted Remus to know it, and he wanted Remus to know that he still felt like fifteen.

And when Remus smiled, Sirius knew he already knew it all, whatever it was, and now they were reunited and they were never going to part again. Ever. All was perfect and he knew he hadn't died in Azkaban, so now nothing could kill him.


End file.
